


fall from grace

by kingandqueeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingandqueeninthenorth/pseuds/kingandqueeninthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyrion tells her the truth as gently as he can, but it doesn’t lessen the blow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fall from grace

Sansa sits in her bath long after the water has gone cold. She prefers it chilly, but Shae always draws her steaming water, no matter how many times she insists otherwise. She leaves Sansa with no choice but to wait until the heat has fled from the water.

She sinks down into the tub until the icy water envelopes her completely.  Beneath the water, the world is muted and cold. She thinks of summer snows, the godswood, the sound of direwolf paws on stone floors, and snowflakes melting in curly auburn hair.

And then she feels hands on her shoulders, pulling her up until she breaks through the surface with a sputtering cough.

Sansa is vaguely aware of Shae shouting at her, demanding to know if she means to drown or just scare her half to death.

She doesn’t know.

—-

Tyrion tells her the truth as gently as he can, but it doesn’t lessen the blow. She swallows her sob and only allows her grief to take her when there is a heavy oaken door separating her from her husband. But her sobs turn to screams, and they aren’t as easily silenced.

—-

She isn’t a fool. She can hear Shae whispering to Tyrion, telling him that she fears for his wife’s sanity.

“She cannot bear the loss of him,” she hears Shae say after Sansa pretends to have gone to sleep. “We must do all we can to keep the details from her.”

—-

The gruesome details aren’t a secret long. Sansa catches bits and pieces here and there, until she can put the pieces together in her head. Lords and ladies find her brother’s demise endlessly fascinating, and none of them can seem to stop talking about it.

Entire rooms go silent upon her entry, and wary eyes follow her everywhere.

—-

His fingertips trace her collarbone, and then follow some invisible line from her shoulder to the back of her hand. He brings her open palm to his lips, kissing the center of it and then folding her fingers to kiss every knuckle.

She wakes from the dream with tears in her eyes.

—-

They were never supposed to be apart. They were two halves of a whole, the eldest Starks with the world at their feet. Their lives were full of summer and laughter, a haze that blinded them.

 _Winter is coming,_ their words warned. They were meant to endure the winter together.

_And now he’s gone._

—-

“She’s a fragile thing,” the queen says to the maester as they stand over Sansa’s bed. “Weak and frail. It’s no wonder she fell so ill so quickly.”

Sansa turns away from the spoon that Pycelle holds. She has no need of medicine when she isn’t sick.

“Does she have a fever?” Cersei presses.

“Sweet sister,” Tyrion begins acidly. “You’re a fool. She’s sick with grief. I wonder why.”

“It’s for the pain, child,” Grand Maester Pycelle says gently.

She’s tired of fighting, so she swallows a whole spoonful of milk of the poppy. It’s thick and chalky and threatens to choke her, but it drags her down and lifts her up at the same time, until sleep takes her.

—-

Robb presses a kiss to her breastbone and then moves to dip his tongue into her navel. His breath is hot, his tongue warm as it sweeps into the void. She whimpers, writhing beneath him impatiently. He grazes his teeth against her skin as he moves over her hipbone and down to the inside of her thigh. He nips at the tender skin and it catches between his teeth.

He looks up at her, the corners of his mouth pulling upward when he sees the look on her face.

Sansa loses her patience and she grabs a fistful of his hair, pulling him towards her until she can feel his tongue flat against her. She moans, feeling raw and exposed but so at ease.

But then she feels a sharp, stabbing pain as his teeth sink into her. She looks down to see that her brother’s head has been replaced with that of a direwolf, and he is snapping at her, desperate to take a bite out of her.

He starts to rip her to bloody ribbons, and Sansa screams.

—-

Her life is an endless nightmare that she is incapable of waking from. She sees Robb’s death over and over and over again. She pictures him getting shot full of arrows, dropping to his knees before the life leaves him. She sees them hacking the head off his corpse and then replacing it with Grey Wind’s. She imagines her mother’s body, floating naked in a river.

She wonders if they’re at peace in death. She wonders if they’ve joined her father.

She wants desperately to join them too.

—-

Robb is gone, sleeping in darkness. Whether he is at peace or in oblivion, she couldn’t say. But he’s gone and she’s alive, and it isn’t right.

_Don’t go where I can’t follow._

_—-_

Every morning she wakes to is a disappointment.

_I should’ve died with him._

And now she must live without him.


End file.
